Superpup ... hot damn I forgot all about it. I have a comp "party" tape with all sorts of badness, super pup clips included.

See, I think its harder to make a good superhero flick than it is to make a mediocre or even outright bad superhero flick. There are so many places you can go wrong: the stiff need for justice, the tights, the overblown badguys. Consequently, bad superhero material outnumbers the good 10 to 1. I mean, even Raimi can make a lame super hero flick. That says something.

Even the few "good" comic book adapations, like The Crow for instance, degenerate into really awful sequels. Flicks like Blade and MIB were based on thinly published properties that were optioned purely to make a movie.

Which is why I consider most big screen "super hero" parodies to be utterly useless. Why parody something that's already a joke by default?

Andrew: Fan Four is one of the rarities that, as far as I know, doesn't have any legal issues associated with its rights. It's never EVER been distributed by a "real" company, and I've heard that Marvel itself sold prints/prereleases to a handful of vendors a few years ago when it declared bankruptcy and needed cash any way it could get it.

I WISH someone would come after me for dubbing Zebra Killer. Girdler's old associates want to buy the rights back and they don't know who (if anyone) still owns them. Even the so-called official Australian videos are really just bootlegs.

Anyone remember the TV show M.A.N.T.I.S.? And whatever happened to the proposed Madman flick? Holy hole in a doughnut!

A friend of mine who deals in . . . shall we say "unplanned live concert albums" . . . discovered that Australian law has an unusual provision for copyright holders. If a person selling copyrighted material cannot find the person who holds the copyright they can set aside a certain percentage of sales to pay the copyright holder when they show themselves.

This way distribution of material where the copyright holder cannot be located is still possible. To the best of my knowledge, they are the only country to do this. That may be why the "official" bootlegs come from there.

He discovered this when a song called "Michael Ferucci" was "discovered" and they couldn't find the original author to get her permission to sell this underground classic (if she ever showed herself she would probably make more money than if she had won the contest it was entered into). The whole story is at http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8692/badsong.html though pretty much irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Actually, I just spun-off the bootleg issue into a thread of its own, but you've offered me a good deal of insight. I looked up Zebra Killer among the British and Australian film boards' records, and they didn't list any copyright holder, which I thought strange considering the movie was released to Aussie video in 1986.

I was mortified when I finally saw the last episode on the Sci-Fi Channel; the only worse way I could see him going out was by falling down in the bathroom and drowning in the toilet while one of the white guys stands outside asking if he's okay. The finale of "Blake's Seven" was relatively Shakespearean. Someone deserves to go to Hell for that...

She's still working, but right now she's well off the A (or even B) List. I was shocked to find she participated in the animated "Batman" series, even with its star-studded cast (everyone from Mark Hamill to Richard Moll) as "Talia."

Oh gee ... what's the very VERY recent syndicated super hero thing ... the inner-city uppity blond guy in red who stomps out alien drug dealers ... I've seen like eight episodes, and yet I still can't remember the name ... "Nightman?" Something like that. It used to play before the stupid but fun Highlander/Raven show. Whatever the super hero thing is, it's awful. Makes Mantis look like Schindler's List.

Mantis did start off as very entertaining ... but if I recall, they changed the british dude after an episode or two.

Oh yeah, "Nightman." He protects his secret identity by leaving a hologram of himself behind, playing (Sax? I fergit an' it ain't like I watched the thing for a full episode, it hurts too much) at a nightclub. Arf. Comes with invisibility/flight cape and over-padded suit.

Squishy, You state that The Spirit was unaired but I actually remember seeing this broadcast on TV back in the mid to late 80's. I really can't remember any particulars of the show but I do remember seeing it. I was pretty young at the time though. Speaking of SuperHero/Comic Book based shows does anybody remember Sable. I remember watching a few episodes of this as well. Rene Russo was on the show if I remember correctly. Also there was a pretty crappy show called Captain Hero(?), Basically it was about a comic superhero who is transported into the real world and as a result loses his superpowers.An unsuper superhero...how exciting can that be??? And does anybody remember Automan,he sorta looked like Tron but I don't remember what his powers were though...